Friends Say Taylor Hawkins Wanted to Tour Less With Foo Fighters

Friends said late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins told them he wanted to cut back on touring with the Dave Grohl-led rockers in his final days.

One of them, Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, told Rolling Stone that Hawkins had confided to him that he “couldn’t fucking do it anymore.”

However, through their representatives, Foo Fighters disputed the characterization that emerged in a report this week. Hawkins unexpectedly died in March while on tour with the Foos, the rock band canceling all their tour dates soon after. He was 50.

On Monday (May 16), Cameron said of Hawkins in a surprising revelation, “He had a heart-to-heart with Dave and, yeah, he told me that he ‘couldn’t fucking do it anymore’ — those were his words.”

The Pearl Jam drummer, also known for his work in Soundgarden and several other acts, collaborated with Hawkins in the band Nighttime Boogie Association.

“I guess they did come to some understanding,” Cameron continued, “but it just seems like the touring schedule got even crazier after that. … He tried to keep up. He just did whatever it took to keep up, and in the end he couldn’t keep up.”

Singer Sass Jordan, who Hawkins backed early in his career, added, “I think he was just so tired. Tired of the whole game.” Another Hawkins associate, who remained anonymous to Rolling Stone, agreed. “He finally spoke to Dave and really told him that he couldn’t do this and that he wouldn’t do it anymore,” they said.

Still, per these statements, it seems Hawkins relented to a Foo Fighters touring schedule beyond his wishes. (Last June, Hawkins told Rolling Stone he was “trying really hard to figure out how to continue to keep the intensity of a young man in a 50-year-old’s body, which is very difficult.”)

Cameron said, “[A band like that] is a big machine [with] a lot of people on the payroll. So you’ve got to really be cognizant of the business side of something when it’s that big and that has inherent pressure, just like any business.”

Foo Fighters’ rep denied that Hawkins ever raised the issue to Grohl or the band’s management team. “No, there was never a ‘heart-to-heart’ — or any sort of meeting on this topic — with Dave and [Silva Artist Management],” they said. “He never ‘informed Dave and [management]’ of anything at all like that.”

In the report, it’s suggested Hawkins’ plight was underscored when he lost consciousness on a plane in Chicago last December. The group’s rep replied it was “not true” that Hawkins lost consciousness. A news report at that time said only “a member of Foo Fighters was taken to [the] hospital,” without naming them.

The cause of Hawkins’ death is still unknown after he was found dead in Bogota, Colombia, on March 25, just before Foos were to play Festival Estereo Picnic. A preliminary toxicology report showed he had 10 different substances in his system.

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Author: showrunner